Love never dies, and Darkness only fades
by EmKathleen13
Summary: Zoey and the rest of the group are still trying to stay away from Kalona and Neferet. When the group visits the Shadowhunter Institute in New York, can they still stay away from the Darkness, or will it find them and leave a burning scar in Zoey's heart?


From the driver's seat, Darius spoke. Zoey hadn't been asleep, unlike the others. Darius was wide awake, and Zoey wondered for a second how he could be so not tired-like.

"Priestess." He said. "We aren't far from the Institute, now."

Zoey nodded. "Thank you, Darius." Yawning, Aphrodite mumbled, "I'll wake up your blood bank, your Warrior, and the nerd herd." Zoey rolled her eyes as Aphrodite woke up the Twins, Damien, Jack, Stark, Heath, Stevie Rae, and Erik. As the whole gang woke, Zoey avoiding Erik's eyes as Heath and Stark smiled at her, Darius parked the Hummer.

Getting out of the vehicle, Zoey heard a sarcastic voice say, "Sooo, you're those special Vampyres? What's up with the things on your heads?"

Zoey turned to see a very attractive blonde haired teenager grinning a very, very attractive, yet sarcastic, grin. Stevie Rae countered this remark by saying back to him, "That Vampyre has something on his head, too." She pointed at a brown haired, dorky, but nice, looking vampire boy (not a House of Night Vampyre, though, definitely not. He was definitely not a follower of Nyx, and did not bare the Goddess's Mark) who had some kind of symbol or marking on his forehead that was visible even with his bands somewhat covering it. Aphrodite attempted, yet failed, to hide her laugh inside a cough. Heath glared.

"Hey!" Heath hollered at the blonde boy. "It's the Mark of their Goddess, boy." As Stark rolled his eyes and Erik stepped out of the Hummer, Zoey was desperately trying to ignore a black haired, blue eyed boy who was curiously eyeing her odd Marks, the ones that spread not only on her face but on her neck and shoulders and chest and arms and back. At that moment, a nice and kind voice caught Zoey's attention. She looked to see a girl, probably around her age, with beautiful black hair. "Come on!" the girl urged. "I'll show you to your section of rooms!"

The blonde boy grinned sarcastically again. "Make sure to give them the Downworlder rooms, Izzy." He said. Stark looked at the boy in a confused manner as Damien and Jack stepped out, their arms locked. Damien made a dramatic eye-roll at all of the Vampyres. "Honestly, do you people ever read?" he asked.

"On occasion." Stark said.

"Really?" Zoey asked.

"Actually, I love reading." He grinned and Zoey smiled back, ignoring Erik's eyes on her.

"Anyway," Damien stressed, but the black haired girl, with a wave of her hand, urged him to be quiet as a red haired girl stepped up and said, "Just ignore Jace. He's awfully rude sometimes." She gave him a tiny glare as the Twins stepped out of the Hummer, followed by Darius.

"Just be nice, Jace." The red haired girl said. Then she turned to Zoey and the others. "Downworlders are Vampires, Werewolves, Faeries, and Warlocks. But you'll be in normal rooms, of course."

"I knew what Downworlders were." Damien mumbled under his breath. Jack smiled and gave Damien an _It's okay _sort of look. Stark and Heath, in response to the girl's comment, nodded, stepping up to stand beside Zoey, ignoring Erik's slight glare in their direction.

"Are we going in, or what?" Heath asked impatiently. Darius nodded in agreement. "Yes, let's not linger out here any longer. They've invited us in so kindly, so let's accept their invitation, shall we?" Taking a step forward and closing the Hummer door behind him, Darius locked his arm with Aphrodite's. Aphrodite, flipping her blond hair, finally spoke. "So you know, we're not all vamps here. Blood bank here—" Zoey interrupted her, giving an annoyed sigh. "Ohmygoddess, his name his Heath." Aphrodite just rolled her eyes. "Oh whatever." She continued. "Heath is human."

"And can I just say that so are you?" Stark said, making a point. Aphrodite looked stubbornly at him for a moment before she said, "Yeah, well, the Goddess _loves _me. I have visions. Him?" she gestured to Heath, who made a very, very rude gesture at her, concerning a certain finger, which she pleasantly ignored. "He's nothing to Nyx." She finished. Zoey, knowing this was definitely not true, ignored her as well.

"Shall we go inside, then?" Darius asked, impatiently, looking quite irritated. The blonde boy—Jace?—made some smart-ass comment about how there were Mundanes and that without them he wouldn't have to glamour himself to stop them from gawking over his beauty. Everyone rolled their eyes and walked inside, followed by Jack and Stark's golden Labrador, Duchess, and 5 House of Night cats.

The black haired, blue eyed boy followed, too, and said, "Jace, would you just come inside and quit being a moron to them long enough for introductions?" as he passed by Jace. Jace walked inside and, as if he had somewhere to be, pointed to each person as he said their names. "This," he pointed at the redhead. "is Clarissa Morgenstern. Clary, we call her." He winked at her, and she smiled. Then he pointed at the black haired girl. "The black haired girl is Isabelle, the black haired boy is her gay brother, Alec, his sparkly gay Warlock boyfriend is Magnus Bane, the werewolf chick is Maia, and her vampire boyfriend there with the Mark of Cain on his forehead is Simon. And I, obviously, am Jace."

Darius nodded and looked at Zoey, as if to say it's your turn. Zoey sighed. "I'm Zoey Redbird, the so-called special Vampyre fledgling. Yes, I see you eyeing my Marks, Alec." Alec coughed and looked away. Zoey continued. "My Warrior, here, the blond one with the red Marks, is Stark. My Consort, the blonde human one, is Heath. The big, buff guy is Darius, his girlfriend is Aphrodite, the brown haired gay boy is Damien and his cute blonde boyfriend is Jack, the tall full-vamp is Erik, the black girl is Shaunee, and her so-called twin Blondie is Erin, and my BFF is Stevie Rae…" she looked at the animals. "Oh, and here's Stark and Jack's dog, Duchess, and the 5 cats are our cats from the House of Night. They'd freak is we left them."

"Oh!" Clary said. "Jace, you forgot Church and Chairman Meow! Our cat is Church. He belongs to the institute. Magnus's cat is Chairman Meow."

Damien gave a nice smile and began, swiftly, pointing out each cat of theirs. "My cat is Cameron. That is Nala, Zoey's cat. That is Nefertiti, Darius's cat. That is Beezlebub, the Twins' cat, and that, there, is Maleficent, Aphrodite's horrid cat."

Isabelle smiled warmly. "Oh, aww! They'll get along just perfectly with each other!"

Zoey smiled. "Well, now that introductions have been made…" Darius nodded in agreement. "Shall we get to our rooms and unpack our backpacks, Priestess?" He turned to Isabelle as he addressed her as 'Priestess', like he often did with many females since he was a Son of Erebus warrior.

"You would not call her that after her food…" Jace commented, but Isabelle smacked him upside the head. 'Shut up!"

Darius planned ignore this, but turned to Jace anyway to address it. "Warrior," he said coolly. "Even if she cannot cook, it does not strip her of her title, or of whatever title I choose to address her with." He smiled, knowing he irritated Jace as he saw Jace roll his eyes, and turned back to Isabelle. Putting his hand over his heart and bowing, he saluted her as a warrior would salute a High Priestess. Isabelle smiled again as she led them to a whole hallway of rooms.

"Thank you." She said. "Here are your rooms. You can each choose one. There are plenty, so you don't have to room together, but you can." At that, Stevie Rae smiled. "My own room!...not that I have anything against sharing a room with you, Z." She looked at Zoey.

"Oh. No, it's fine." Zoey smiled. "If you want your own room, have at it."

"And anyway," Stark cut in, standing close to her. "I feel, as Zoey's warrior, I must share a room with her in case that damned Kalona freak sneaks into her dreams again." Heath tried to argue, of course, but Zoey interrupted. "It's Stark's job to protect me." She said to Heath. "And in doing this, he is protecting me."

To break the long silence that followed between everyone, Heath staring at Zoey then at Stark and nodding reluctantly, Jace said, "I'm hungry. Let's order Chinese food."

"But I wanna cook for our guests!" Isabelle complained. Jace, Magnus, Alec, Simon, and Maia all said "No!" causing Izzy to give them a very grumpy glare. Erik, then, surprising everyone, said, "Well, let's just get to our rooms and unpack first."

Damien immediately agreed with Erik, leading Jack to nearby room they could share. The Twins did so as well, oddly silent, and so did Stevie Rae.

"If you dislike being alone, you can room with me." Erik said to Heath, who was hesitating in picking a room for just himself. Heath looked at Erik with an are-you-stupid-or-what look on his face. "No. I wouldn't be caught _dead _rooming with you." Then he chose a room and left as Erik, too, left to go to a room away from Heath's. Zoey noticed that each of the cats (and dog) had followed their Vampyre, while Nala stayed close to Zoey. Isabelle smiled through her grumpiness as Aphrodite followed Darius to an available room, leaving only Jace, Clary, Maia, Magnus, Simon, Alec, Isabelle, Zoey, and Stark.

"So, what kind of Chinese food does everyone want?" Izzy asked. Zoey sighed. "I don't know…" she turned to Stark. "Uh…" She bit her lip and Stark turned and looked at Izzy. "The two Red Vampyres, Stevie Rae and myself, must stay out of sunlight at all costs, or else we will literally burn into ash. And…though it makes me sick…we must have human blood." He looked at Zoey as Isabelle turned to the others to talk about this. "I am definitely not drinking from Heath or Aphrodite." Jace gave another grin as he overheard Stark's remark. :We could always grab a random Mundane off the street…"

"No," Zoey said, looking at Isabelle. "Our blood sucking…um…well, it wouldn't be best to drink from the wrong people…" she bit her lip. "It causes the sexual pleasure receptors to go off in the Vampyre and the 'victim', and there's also something called Imprinting…" She shook her head. "No random people, please…" her voice trailed off once more and she immediately said to Stark, "I'd so rather you drink from Aphrodite or Heath."

"Well," Stevie Rae's voice said, and Zoey turned around, startled, to see that she, Aphrodite, Heath, and Darius had returned to the hall. "They can't be our…" Stevie Rae's eyes met Aphrodite's. "…refrigerators…forever." Zoey could faintly hear Simon whisper to Maia, "Why can't _I _do that?" and Maia say, "At least you can go in the sun. You're a Daylighter, at least."

Zoey sighed. "We can go in the sun." She said to Simon and Maia. "But it is uncomfortable. The Red Vampyres, though, will burn if they do."

"And," Stark began. "Heath's blood, Zoey, tastes wrong to everyone but you. I cant drink from him because of your Imprint. And Aphrodite—"

"Because of a fucking accident of Stevie Rae _attacking me_, I'm Imprinted with bumpkin over here." Aphrodite interrupted, pointing at Stevie Rae, who rolled her eyes and mumbled "Like I like it any more than you."

"Like hell I wanna have her sucking my blood, but if she needs it then _fine._" Aphrodite added.

Simon smiled awkwardly and said, "I used to burn too, but because of Valentine and, um, Jace…" he looked at Jace, who rolled his eyebrows and received a "Oh, stop it." from Clary. "I don't burn anymore." Simon finished.

As Damien, Jack, Erik, and the Twins came back from their rooms, Magnus, who had apparently left the hall during the entire conversation to go wait by the Institute's doors, announced that the food had arrived. As everyone made their way to the dining room, Heath looked at Simon. "Who's Valentine?"

"Who's Kalona?" Simon countered. As they all sat down to eat, Isabelle sighed. "We'll eat while we talk about the depressing stuff, 'Kay?"

Eventually, it came down to making Zoey and Stark explain Kalona and Neferet, and Clary and Jace explain Valentine, because each pair knew the person or people better than the rest. Zoey took a deep breath and began by saying, "Kalona…" she paused, a bit unsure of what to say. A few seconds later, she said, "Basically, Kalona is a fallen immortal and Neferet was our High Priestess of our House of Night before she became evil and allied with Darkness. They are both working together to bring back the olden ways of the Vampyres, as well as to rule the world sort of and become, like, all powerful…They hate humans."

"Add," Aphrodite flipped her blonde hair and crossed her arms. "that Kalona is mega-hot and mega-evil so he is able to put people under his spell, and Neferet is able to control the Darkness…and we all know they are both assholes and Neferet is a slut…"

"My love," Darius said. "You may wish to watch your language."

Jace snickered and Clary rolled her eyes at him, though she was smiling, and said, "Valentine led a cult of people, Shadowhunters, who were evil and wanted all Downworlders dead. He acted as Jace's father, even though he was truly mine, faked his death, came back about 16 years later, made us believe we were brother and sister, searched for the Mortal Instruments, and caused a war in Alicante where the angel Raziel killed him and Jace killed Valentine's true son, Sebastian, or Jonathan Christopher." Clary bit her lip. "It wasn't pretty, but we got through it. I'm just glad he's gone."

Then Erik spoke up, interrupting Zoey when she began to say, "I can't wait until Kalona and Neferet are-"

"Yes," Erik said. "And to add to our story, Zoey has a thing for Kalona, as she has had a thing fro so many other boys."

"Go to Hell, Erik!" Zoey screamed, genuinely hurt, her eyes showing, as Clary saw, a mixture of hate, annoyance, hurt, and regret. Zoey wanted to launch at him and use all the elements to tear him to shreds at the moment. Stark put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down, and he glared coldly at Erik.

"She doesn't have a thing for him. It's not her fault that part of her soul is the reincarnation of the one Kalona had loved, and the one who had trapped him. He wants Zoey alive, you asshole." Erik, glaring back at Stark, was about to say something back when Zoey interrupted them.

"Would you all SHUT UP?" she yelled. Alec was the first to speak, seeing the anger and hurt in Zoey's eyes. "This won't help anything." He said. Erik shot Stark one more pissed off glare before her said sharply, "I'm going to bed."

"Well aren't we all so happy today?" Magnus asked, gaining a death look from almost everyone. "I'm going to bed, too." He said quickly.

"Goodnight," Alec sighed as Erik left the dining room in a fit of rage and Magnus fled for his own well-being.

"Just _wonderful_." Zoey cursed under her breath.


End file.
